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Universal health care would be better fit in U.S.

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Tuesday February 11, 2014 6:39 AM

The Dispatch has the right conclusion in its Friday editorial “Resistant to spin,” but for a very different reason than stated in the editorial. What the Affordable Care Act roll-out has taught us is that health care has no business being attached to employment status. It offers perverse incentives for companies to cut their full-time workforce to avoid fines.

The act further cements a failed system. Kudos to the companies that stepped up for their employees and provided insurance and continue to do so.

But it’s time to unburden those companies and make health care a right of every American, not a changeable benefit of a job.

As the financial meltdown has taught us, we can't legislate corporate morality. The solution is simply to remove them from the equation.

Relieving the burden of health insurance via employers has the potential to not only significantly raise take-home pay (well beyond any cost that would be borne by taxpayers), but provides one less governmental hurdle to hiring more workers.

Health care is a right of every American — rich, poor, employed, unemployed — and it’s time to treat it as such via a universal health-care system.